


Needing to Belong

by applecameron



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Cutting, D/s, Dubious Consent, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Past Child Abuse (Implied), Submissive Arthur, Suicide Attempt, death of original character, dominant eames
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-08
Updated: 2016-01-08
Packaged: 2018-05-12 15:27:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,954
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5670856
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/applecameron/pseuds/applecameron
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>prequel to <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/5547503">"What Belongs to Mr. Eames"</a>.</p><p>Arthur is struggling w/self-harm (specifically, cutting).  Eames helps.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Needing to Belong

Eames arrives about ten days after the rest of the team have settled in, having started by tailing the mark's mother throughout her trip to Bruges. She'd had a lovely time, but he felt Bruged out by the time he staggered into his little room in an Utrecht hotel. Arthur is waiting for him, sitting on the bed, dark head bowed and hands in his lap, as if he faithfully waited for Eames to come home every day. A pretty picture, indeed. Then he looks up and the spell is broken. 

"Evening, Mr. Eames." 

"Arthur." He drops his bag, shrugs off his coat, and pulls his button down out of his slacks. He felt overly rumpled from travel and too much lounging about cafes, and it didn't help that Arthur looked so trim and neat in comparison. "To what do I owe this great pleasure?" 

"Just a check-in." Arthur nods at a small stack of papers waiting for Eames on the little vanity opposing the bed. "Some things for you." 

He flips through it, quickly. Local maps, notes on the mother's itinerary here in Utrecht, family trees of closest friends, the 1976 edition of the book she tended to quote - "oh, you found it, well done," he mutters, barely noticing Arthur's mild preening in response as he opens it and absorbs the feel of the paper under his fingertips. Smells it, recording the scent for future forgery. "Yes. This is good. This is very good." Saved him from being reduced to looking at the cover on Google Books or something and nothing else. "Thank you." 

Arthur nods. "I got lucky." 

"Never admit that, pet, just take credit for it." 

They smile at each other, and for a moment Eames wonders if someday they will act on the attraction between them after all. Right now, though, he really just wants a bath. Of such mundanities are chances for passionate liaisons missed. 

Eames sees the bandage when Arthur pulls on his own coat and makes to leave. At second glance, he didn't look quite so neat and trim after all. Bandage on his left wrist? arm? Hair neatly slicked, yes, but fatigue lines deeper than normal around his mouth and eyes. Pale. He looked more like the Arthur who'd chased after Dom Cobb, keeping him from getting himself killed, for far too long, than post-Inception Arthur. Inception was two years ago now and more, and he's seen Arthur dapper and laughing since. This looked like a step backward. 

"Hey." He snags Arthur's sleeve. "Everything all right?" He'll let Arthur pretend it's a question about the job, so long as he answers. 

The man shakes his head. "We're fine." 

They part. 

* * *

Their extractor, Liu, gives him the gossip the next day. Funeral. Arthur had just gotten back the night before. It had to be a close enough relative to make Arthur leave in the middle of a job. But then he came back instead of handing them off with a recommendation for a replacement point. Hard to tell these things with Arthur, he was so closed off about his past. A good trait in a criminal. 

Makes it hard to be friends, though, rather than just friendly. 

Eames spends his time tailing the mark's mother and looking for an insertion point to enter her life for closer observation. They'd convene in the early hours or late at night, at the hotel suite in a hotel none of them were officially staying at, but Arthur probably slept in half the time anyway. Eames would copy his notes, which were illegible anyway, review footage, practice his walk. Bounce ideas for how to get closer off Arthur. Go down and practice on the PASIV for an hour below, minutes up top, while Arthur stayed topside to monitor. 

There were a great many benefits of working with Arthur of the mysterious No Last Name as point on a job, including 

  * excellent coffee, delivered hot - Arthur had never insulted him by offering Eames mediocre tea, as so many had before him
  * clear, coherent, research on the mark, the mark's associates, friends, lovers, enemies, vendors, suppliers, dentist, florist, finances, habits, that cleared the way for Eames to focus on the personalities and the dynamic between the mark and whoever was selected for his forge
  * a trustworthy spotter for almost any use of the PASIV
  * clean tools and a safe space to work with enough electrical outlets - a positive gift when working in former Soviet Bloc countries



A trustworthy, reliable point is worth their weight in gold. Eames has suffered jobs with bad points and no points at all, so he had to do his research while tailing someone and looking for their facial tics at the same time. If he had his druthers, he wouldn't work with anyone other than Arthur. Not that he'd tell him or anything. They weren't that kind of friends. Trust, though. They had that between them. 

He practices his forge for an hour, sometime well after midnight, blinking awake to Arthur pulling the needle out of his arm for him. There's still a bandage on the other man's wrist, and without thinking Eames takes his hand. "What happened?" 

Arthur just sort of blinks at him. "Funeral." 

Eames has been to a few wakes that involved brawls in his time, but he's pretty sure that's not what Arthur means. Why that is the answer for Arthur making some kind of bloody mess of himself, he's not sure. "Who?" 

Arthur's quiet for a moment and Eames regrets asking. "Sister. Ruth." 

"I'm so sorry." 

"Me, too." 

Arthur turns away, and Eames can see the fine tremor in his visible hand, his back. He shakes his head and doesn't speak. 

Eames takes a deep breath, sits up. "I'm done for the night." 

"Okay." Arthur says thickly. "Get some sleep." 

"You, too." 

Eames goes. 

* * *

They do a walkthrough of the dream a couple days later, testing stability - Liu, Eames, Zhang the architect - the setting looks good. Eames' forge looks good. Zhang shoots herself out early, muttering about sending Arthur down to look at the layout. 

Arthur pops into existence about 15 minutes later, personal duration. He's looked better, true, but fit and trim in slacks and waistcoat. His sleeves are rolled down and still cuffed, in dream. He looks Eames' forge up and down and nods, hands in his pockets. 

Liu drags them all outside, pointing out landmarks drawn to be just familiar enough. 

"It's good." Arthur walks them to a bridge, past projections going about their own business. He leans against a railing looking down into the water, and that's when Eames spots the dark splotch on his arm. Arthur's bleeding through the bandage on his arm in the dream. The sleeve is dark from elbow to wrist and there's blood dripping, now. It's the first time Eames has been down with Arthur on this job. He has no idea what the hell this means, or whether it just started. What the hell was Arthur doing bleeding all over the dreamscape? 

Arthur sees him look and looks himself. Presses the mark. His right hand comes away bloody. He looks at Eames for a second and there's something in his eyes. Something old and despairing. Then scrambles up, clearly about to throw himself off the bridge. "See you two topside. Nice forge, Eames." 

"Fuck!" Liu and Eames shout it in tandem. But he's gone already. 

"What the hell was that?" Asks Liu. There's bloody bits of handprint everywhere. Eames has seen Arthur exit a dream by death countless times, but this was different. With the look on his face, Arthur looked like a real jumper, for just that moment, when he scrambled up and fled the world. 

By the time they're up, Arthur's gone on "more surveillance", according to Zhang. 

Liu's angry at Eames, thinking he's keeping something from her. "What the hell was that?" she repeats, sticking a manicured nail in his chest after they disconnected from the PASIV. At Eames' helpless shrug, "I thought you two were close. Didn't you go to the funeral with him?" 

Eames is confused. "I did?" 

Now it's Liu's turn to look confused at him. "You both got back the same day." 

Eames shakes his head. "I was in Bruges, tailing the mother." 

Liu swears briefly in Cantonese, which Eames didn't understand but it sounded sincere. "Okay, sorry. I thought you bailed and went with him." She shuffles her feet when Eames raises his eyebrows at that, then says exasperatedly, "Anyone can see how you look at each other. That's why I left him to you." 

"Left him to me?" Eames feels like a parrot. 

In the silence that follows, Zhang picks up a random piece of paper and walks toward her drafting table, pretending to be not at all absorbed in the conversation. 

"Can you go chase after the man, please, and make sure he's not jumping off a bridge in real life? Because that was kind of creepy, even without the bleeding. Would you do that, please?" 

"Yeah." Eames pulls on his coat. "Yeah, okay." Because she was right: that was creepy. Arthur is bleeding in dreams and jumping off bridges like he means it. And looking at Eames with despair in his eyes. Someone needs to figure out what is going on. Apparently, that someone is him. 

He could hear Zhang ask "what bleeding?", as he left, but not Liu's answer. 

* * *

Finding Arthur is far too easy. Eames just knocks on his hotel door. He has a bottle of whiskey as a pretend peace offering, if one is necessary. Arthur just swings open the door, unarmed, and whatever friendly, compassionate inquiry Eames was about to make flies out the window. 

"Jesus, Arthur, you didn't even check who it was!" He stomps in, fear making him angry. Lets Arthur shut and lock the door behind him. The man's in stocking feet, sleeves rolled up. Eames can see the bandaging now, for the first time, all as a whole. 

"I knew it was you." 

He's momentarily mollified. "Oh. You know, if you put a camera in that hall, will you put one in mine as well?" 

"There's no camera." Arthur shrugs. "I just know your tread." 

Eames feels like all his conversations since he got here from Bruges have had at least two layers per participant. Liu thinks they're dating or something, meaning every conversation she'd had with him about his schedule, Arthur's schedule, their late-night and early-morning meetings, hotel rooms, was to her as though she was speaking to a forge Eames didn't know he was performing, part of an Eames-and-Arthur that didn't actually exist, topside. And Arthur recognizes people by their footsteps down a hallway. This is actually valuable intelligence to anyone who might come after him, or try to extract from him. And he's just fucking broadcasting it to Eames, of all people. "Arthur." 

There's a knife, on the stand by the bed, a dot of blood on the coverlet, and clues, drifting around Eames' head like feathers. He puts the bottle down and walks over to the bed. "When did you start cutting." 

"After the funeral." Arthur says quietly, behind him. 

"Had you ever done it before?" They are resolutely not looking at one another. Eames pockets the knife. 

"I'll just get another one." 

"I know, but it makes me feel productive." He breathes in through his nose, then pulls off his coat and tosses it over a chair. "Give us a look, then. I'll change that dressing for you." 

They finally make eye contact. Arthur's got this vaguely flummoxed look on his face. 

"You've got first aid stuff, yeah?" 

Eames tosses his suit jacket and rolls up his own sleeves as Arthur fetches, then spreads out the contents of the first aid kit onto the bed. There's sterile gauze, tape, a couple abdominal pads for the gut-shot criminal on the run, at least they didn't have that problem today. Bits, bobs, ointments. Vicodin. Bug spray. Scissors. "Okay." He pets the bed, up near the pillow. "Arm." Arthur sits and gives over. He starts peeling, gently. 

One laceration has three stitches, tidily done. "When are you due to get those out?" 

"I don't know, it's on the paperwork somewhere. Can you read German?" 

"Medical records and musical notation, as it happens." 

"Huh. Interesting combo." Arthur rummages in the drawer of the night stand while Eames holds his arm still and bends to sniff for infection. "Did you sterilize the knife in advance?" 

Arthur stills with papers in his hand, as if he's forgotten for the moment why they're here. That Arthur cut himself. After his sister died. Deeply enough to need stitches. "I don't think so," he says to the papers. "I was too, too - " 

"Too caught up." 

"'Yeah." 

"We should keep an eye on it, just in case. I'll change it again tomorrow." He holds his hand out for the papers and spends a few minutes skimming, picking out words as Arthur's arm balances on his knee. Arthur's written German is not that good or he would never have just handed this to Eames. Brought in to a hospital in Bonn, half-conscious after found in his hotel room by housekeeping, considered a probable suicide attempt, refused counseling, refused inquiry to embassy (that part wasn't surprising), left against medical advice and before any forcible psychiatric intervention could be attempted. The stitches should probably come out in another three or so days. Eames schools his features and relays just the last fact. 

Arthur nods. 

Eames turns back to his task. Cleans the wound, applies anti-bacterial ointment. Starts the actual bandaging, humming. There's something comforting about tasks like this. Besides, he likes taking care of Arthur. 

He's just about done, applying a couple more bits of tape when he says into the gentle quiet between them, "Liu thinks we're dating." 

"Ha, I wish." As soon as he says it, Arthur jerks away, looking down at his arm. Presses the last piece of tape into place on his skin. "Sorry." 

"Don't be." 

He shifts away, moving to collect and repack the first aid kit. Refuses to make eye contact. "It's not a big deal, Eames." Stands. "Doesn't matter." 

"I wish, too, Arthur." He does. He has for ages. "You matter." 

Arthur just shakes his head, still not making eye contact as he withdraws, disappearing to put the kit away. 

Eames doesn't move. It's certainly the queerest rejection he's had in a while. He's not even sure it is one. The timing is awful, of course. Or, maybe not. 

Arthur reappears, so he says it again, staying seated on the bed, trying to make eye contact. "I mean it. I wish, too." 

Arthur just jams his hands in his pockets, looking exhausted and young and miserable, and looks at the window as if he can see through the curtains to the view beyond. Shakes his head some more. 

Eames thinks if he stands he's going to wind up chasing Arthur around this little room. "I do." 

"You wouldn't - . Not if you knew." 

He puts out his hand. "Come sit back down. There's plenty of room." 

"My dad says it's my fault." Arthur crumbles in on himself. "Says it was suicide. My fault." 

Eames toes off his shoes and follows him down to sit on the floor. 

"I failed Ruthie. Oh, god, I failed her." 

Eames curls his arms and legs around Arthur. 

"Tell me about Ruthie." Eames folds him in oh-so-carefully, gradually applying pressure to pull him into an embrace, leaning together against the foot of the bed. 

"Year younger than me." Arthur's eyes are shut. "I always protected her. Kept Dad away from her." Eames ruthlessly suppresses his reaction to _that_. "I took her with me when I enlisted. Dad didn't do a thing to get her back." He's silent for a moment. "You know, I was actually surprised." He puts his palms to his eyes and presses, his body curling tight around his grief like it's a belly wound. "I thought he'd fight me for her. But it was too late. I got her away, but it was too late. I wasn't good enough to save her. I didn't do enough." His voice drops further. "It's always my fault." 

He doesn't punch Eames, or even pull away. Just seems so sad, so badly hurt. Huddled in a little ball around the wound in his heart. 

"What happened after you got away?" 

"She was going to enlist when she turned 18, too. I put her in high school so she could finish her diploma. But they didn't want her." He scrubs at his face. "They took me but didn't want her." 

"Why?" 

"Too fucked up." He breathes deep. "I hid it better, is all. They took me and didn't want her." He wraps an arm around Eames like he doesn't know he's doing it. 

There are so many revelations in the things Arthur's saying, Eames scarcely knows what to ask next. "What happened?" 

"Dad got to her one day. I didn't know she'd been sent home sick. I was too late." 

Eames lets him cry until he runs out of tears, for now, at least, and his grip on Eames loosens. 

When he seems mostly asleep, or at least half asleep, Eames moves him a little and whispers, "let's go to bed." 

He pulls them up so that they're on the bed, then fiddles with Arthur's belt, thinking someday if only he could do so under more pleasant circumstances. He peels their clothes off as quickly as possible. Arthur makes a little satisfied noise once they're pulled back together and warming under the covers, then seems to fall dead asleep in seconds. 

* * *

For the next 6 nights, Eames shows up at Arthur's door, regardless of the hour. Arthur keeps letting him in, keeps accepting his touch. They don't talk about wishes. Arthur lets Eames change his dressing, remove his stitches, put him to bed and climb in with him. It's like when he's with Eames, tucked into his warmth, it gives him permission to grieve. Like he can't let go by himself, he needs someone else to protect _him_ first, the one who spent his life protecting someone else. 

Eames learns that Arthur's younger sister Ruth started using drugs after graduating school and being turned down by the army. That the army doesn't like adult siblings living on base as a servicemember's dependent unless Arthur got appointed her guardian. That the world just kept stacking itself against their success. That they struggled to stay together, and then Arthur got transferred to join Project Somnacin, and everything was so hush-hush, and Ruth just kept falling farther behind. That things had been bad for a long time, no matter how much Arthur spent on her once he left the military. That she died in a mental hospital. Could've been suicide. Could've been slitting her wrists in the throes of hallucination. 

Eames has found his point of entry to the mark's world and is spending his days as a temporary cleaner for the mark's mother. One afternoon, he slips out and checks in with the team. Zhang nods at him when he comes in and turns back to her models, but with a general air of satisfaction. Liu's demeanor is similar. She claps Eames on the shoulder. "We're ready if you are. The mark is coming to his mistress tomorrow night but we've got a medical emergency planned for her." She smiles at Eames. "Nothing too onerous. Arthur can give her a nice case of food poisoning when she goes out to lunch." 

"Excellent, I'm getting tired of bleach." 

Liu laughs. 

Things are coming together. 

* * *

The job does not go off without a hitch, but they're alive, paid, because Arthur improvises a home invasion when the mistress gets out of the hospital early and shows up while everyone's under, pulling a mask over his head and putting a gun to hers. He steals the mark's wallet, then tosses the place to look like he just wasn't good enough to find the mistress's hidden jewelry box. She can claim it's gone if she likes. Takes both of her fur coats, though. 

All this while Eames and Liu and the mark slumber out of view on the mistress's bed, digging for secrets. 

Eames wakes to Arthur's hand on his mouth. His other is on Liu's. They pack up the PASIV in perfect silence, tiptoe past the closet Arthur put the mistress in, and leave Arthur to his cleanup. They take the stairs one flight down together. Liu shakes his hand when they part and whispers, "check your account after midnight". Liu takes the elevator the rest of the way while Eames takes the stairs, so no one sees them together. 

Arthur's job as point is to tidy up the loose ends - violently if need be. No one will go back to the hotel room they've been using as their base. Zhang, as architect, was gone already, her design job finished before they even grabbed the mark. Arthur had packed up and cleaned out the space first thing that morning. 

Eames walks away, as planned. 

He doesn't go far, not as planned. He breaks into Arthur's hotel room instead. Arthur likes to stagger departures. A 4- or 5-person team all scattering at the same time are still crossing borders all at about the same time. Better for one to leave by train to another city, another to fly out of the country, another to stay on. Since he's point - first in, last out - he's stayed for days after the job plenty of times. Surveilling the mark if it seems necessary. His usual due diligence. Eames likes to leave right away. 

Not this time. This time, he sidles out to kill the couple hours it'll need for Arthur to pistol-whip the mark or whatever he decides to do, to sell the attempted burglary. 

Comes back after supper, breaks in, expecting Arthur recognized his tread again or it might be a short visit ending in gunshot, only to find Arthur seated on his bed in shirtsleeves, blood welling across the line of a new cut, eyes shut. He's breathing through his mouth. He doesn't pay attention to Eames at all, just looks down and scores right next to the same spot again. Deeper. 

"Arthur, stop." 

When he does look at Eames it's to shake his head, like he's so unsurprised Eames would be there to see him. It's frightening. Like it doesn't matter, or Eames can't stop him, or whatever space he's occupying in his own head has no room for Eames in it. He just looks down, seeking a new spot. Starts to cut again. 

Eames can see the blood, can visualize perfectly a final slash across Arthur's wrist and how he'd get paler and paler as his life leaves him, if Eames wasn't there to stop him. The thought galvanizes him finally, into an explosion of fear and anger - he picks Arthur up bodily and slams them both face-first into the wall as hard as he can. 

"No." He slams the hand with the knife flat against the wall, twists until Arthur grunts in pain and drops it. Twists differently, pulling his arm behind his back. "No! Damn it, I said, no." 

He brushes a thumb against the vertebrae at the base of Arthur's neck for just a moment. "It's all right. Just calm down." 

"S'not all right." Arthur mumbles against the wall. He's struggling, but not really. He's a skilled fighter and so is Eames. Normally, they're evenly matched. But Arthur doesn't actually want to win this fight and Eames knows it. He just has to make Arthur admit it. Has to make Arthur give over, yield not just the knife but truly yield, if that's the only way to protect him. Turn this energy in a new direction. Sex, fighting him, anything but this cutting and cutting and cutting, death edging closer with every slice. 

He knows what to do. God forgive him, he even wants to do it, whether Arthur is capable of consent right now or not. 

Whispers in Arthur's ear, husky and commanding. "If you can't control yourself, Arthur, I will do it for you." He's hard at that very thought, eager, even, to be that for him, cock pressed tight against Arthur's fitted trousers. Thrusts against him and Arthur draws a ragged breath, the first normal sound he's made since Eames entered. "Can you control yourself? Can you stop yourself when you have a knife in your hand?" 

Arthur's shaking against him. He thrusts again and Arthur moans. 

"Can you, Arthur?" 

Arthur tenses, then whispers "no", and sags against Eames. "No. I, I can't - ." 

"That's right, you can't. So, I will." He holds them together, puts Arthur's palms against the wall and thrusts again and again. "All _you_ have to do, is follow orders." 

Arthur's moan is much louder now. 

Eames peels them off the wall enough to feel for Arthur's cock. Nowhere near hard. "You don't have to worry, anymore. I've got you." He undoes the man's flies and slips his fingers in. "I've got you. I'm in control, now." 

That does it, Arthur starts to fill in his hand. "That's right. This is mine, now. I've got you and you don't have to worry. No more worry, Arthur. I've got you." 

He whispers variations on the theme, looking for the phrase that reduces Arthur to jelly, stroking him in his pants. 

He's desperately afraid he'll trigger some memory of Arthur's father and drive him closer to suicide instead of pulling him away. Eames uses no curse words, no insults. He keeps his voice and hands firm. "So simple, now, Arthur. So easy to remember. This is mine. All of you, is mine. I order, and you obey. So simple. I take charge, and you be good." 

Arthur makes a noise, it's not a moan, it's not crying, it's the sound of a lifetime's tension releasing. 

"I'll always tell you what I want you to do, Arthur. I won't lie. I won't set you up to fail. I won't laugh at you, or blame you for things you didn't do. I won't punish you without my reasons." 

Arthur is crying now. "Yes, Yes - " 

"I know you can be good for me. I know you want to be, I know you want to obey, to please." 

"I do, I do. Please. I want to be good." Eames could see it all laid out like a train track on a map, from child to man. How Arthur had struggled so hard to appease his father, sacrificing his innocence, his virginity, his sanity, on the altar of protecting his sister. Probably never got a morsel of approval for any of it. Just his father's hand down his pants, and worse. Brave boy. Sad, brave boy always sacrificing himself, for Ruth, for his country, for Cobb, all that time thinking he wasn't worth anything else, wasn't worth anyone's love. But he can submit to Eames, here, now, accept his love so long as he's not allowed to say 'no' to it. Eames can give him that, can let him be good for Eames and love him for it in return. He wants it, and Arthur does, too. 

Eames is holding them both up now, Arthur is slack against him, gasping. "Your task is to do as I say, when I say. That's what a good boy does. Mine is to be in control." 

Arthur doesn't resist the term _boy_ , just says "yes". 

Eames pulls them away from the wall, abandoning Arthur's cock in favor of his clothes. When Arthur's naked, shuddering, pulled into position rocking on Eames' thigh, he strokes Arthur's cock and whispers, "this is mine, now." 

"Yes." 

"I decide if you come. I decide when you come. Mine." 

Arthur's relief in his arms is palpable. "Yes. Please, Eames." 

"I decide everything." 

"Yes, please." 

He rewards Arthur, who is so, so, beautiful, when he stretches his neck back and comes all over himself. "Good boy." Pets him. _Te absolvo_. _Te absolvo_. _Te absolvo_. 

They make it to the bed, Arthur docile in his arms. Eames scoops up the knife in the process, dropping it on the nightstand. He ignores it in favor of stroking Arthur's hair for awhile, as he comes back to himself slowly. They share a long kiss. 

"Look at the knife, Arthur." 

Fear flashes across his features. 

"I'm telling you to look at it," he commands, lightly. 

Arthur looks. 

"Now look at me." 

Arthur does. 

"Your body belongs to me, now. I will take care of it for you." He touches the smeared and clotting blood on Arthur's arm. "You are not permitted to cut yourself." 

Arthur shudders for several moments, eyes shut. Fighting to submit. To let himself be Eames' _boy_. To trust him. He meets Eames' gaze. Nods. 

"If you are injured, you come to me and tell me." 

Nods. 

"If you want to hurt yourself, you come to me and tell me. I will give you what you need." 

Nods. His lip is trembling. Eames pulls those lips to his own and soothes him until he relaxes, exhaling into Eames' mouth. 

"Good boy. Now, shut it in the drawer." 

Arthur obeys, closing the nightstand drawer carefully. 

"That's my good boy. Good boy. Good boy." Eames drives home the reward for correct behavior by fucking him thoroughly, until Arthur is writhing under him, mindless, moaning every time Eames says _mine_ or _good boy_. Coming only after Eames tells him to, which earns him long, wet, adoring kisses, both of them sticky with come and a little delirious in each other's arms.


End file.
